130 FLIGHT International, IS January 1977
Britain's export airship
Reassessment of the airship continues worldwide, but at
present there is only one type of commercial craft on the
stocks, being built by a London company for a Venezuelan
operator. The bulk order for 22, together with publication by
Britain's Civil Aviation Authority of the world's first modern
set of formal airworthiness standards for commercial air
ships, brings a new level of credibility to lighter-than-air
craft. The TECHNICAL EDITOR looks at progress
with the first airship, due to fly later this year.
CHANGE OF ENVELOPE supplier, substitution of a ducted fan for the ducted propeller, a rethink on the engine, but principally the unavoidably slow pace of setting up
from scratch new certification procedures, have combined
to delay rollout of the first airship being built in Britain
for Venezuela. John Wood, joint managing director of the
London company Aerospace Developments which is to
build 22 non-rigid airships for South American adver
tising firm Aerovision, tells Flight that rollout of the
initial ship at Cardington in Bedfordshire is now set for
July or August. Pre-flight inspection, fitting-out and
ground-testing will occupy two or three weeks and the first
flight is due at the end of the year. Development and certi
fication flying will take about a month, and the craft
will probably be required by Britain's CAA to carry out a
number of local route-proving flights before being dis
assembled for shipping to South America. The first ship
will be delivered early next year, and will be followed five
months later by the second.
Delivery of the remaining airships will be spread over
ten years beginning last April, a relatively slow rate allow
ing them to be absorbed efficiently into the company's
operation. Four of the craft will be transferred to Brazil,
where Aerovision is setting up an offshoot of its aerial-
advertising business. The airships will be certificated in
the public-transport category for a crew of two and eight
passengers, though the initial task will be to support the
company's advertising campaigns and at first no fare-
paying passengers will be carried.
Test pilot in charge of the trials wilf be Boy Belotti, an
ex-US INavy airship pilot who subsequently joined Good
year to fly its publicity airships and who is now con
sultant to Aerospace Developments. He will also be re
sponsible for initial operations in South America.
The Goodyear publicity airships have become a familiar sight in the skies
of America and Western Europe. This particular machine, the 300th
such ship to be built by the company, was assembled at Cardington and
was the first to take shape outside the USA. She carries a pilot and six
passengers on joy rides. (Flight photograph)
H257
The similarity in shape and size of the Goodyear ship (above) and the
Aerospace craft are evident in these two views drawn to the same scale.
The British airship is actually 28ft shorter and 4ft smaller in diameter
than its US counterpart
The British airships will be slightly smaller than the
Goodyears but will carry a rather heavier, 2!2-ton payload.
In addition to the crew and passengers, they will incor
porate a computer-controlled display-lighting system for
night advertising flights around Venezuela. As experience
grows they will be used in pilot experiments by day to
communicate with backwoods towns and villages which are
isolated by lack of rail or river access. Communication
may later become a task in its own right, so increasing
utilisation.
The last commercial airships to be built in Britain came
to a disastrous end 40 years ago, as did others in America
and Germany. The United States Navy used them effec
tively during the war for patrolling America's Atlantic
and Gulf Coast waters, but phased them out of service in
1962 after the advent of long-endurance fixed-wing aircraft.
Apart from the publicity airships of Wullenkemper in
West Germany and Goodyear in America, there has been
no continuity of experience, and the recent resurgence
of interest around the world is calling for a lot of funda
mental research.
In particular, the CAA, charged with the certification
of the first commercial airships to be built anywhere for